SCFZ poll: Burt Gillett

[flip]

Polling the films of Burt Gillett

The rules:

- your list can include no more than half* of the Gillett films you've seen, up to a maximum of 8. So if you've seen 6 films, you can vote for 3, and if you've seen 20, you can vote for up to 8.

* If you've seen an odd number, you can round up when deciding the length of your ballot -- e.g if you've seen 7, you can vote for 4, and if you've seen 15, you can vote for the maximum of 8.

- i'll assume ballots are ranked unless you tell me otherwise. unranked ballots are fine.

- deadline for ballots: next Friday, in seven days, whatever day that is

umbugbene created an index on letterboxd of all of our previous polls here: letterboxd.com/umbugbene/list/index-of-all-scfz-director-polls/

[flip]

I've decided moving forward to make the "extended rules" into just the ordinary rules, because we're polling a lot of directors where i'd want to use the extended rules anyway, and there's really no harm in using them even for well-viewed directors.

[wba]

Great director!! ♥♥♥

01. Three Little Pigs (1933)
02. Babes in the Woods (1932)
03. Ye Olden Days (1933)
04. Gulliver Mickey (1934)
05. Lonesome Ghosts (1937)
06. The Big Bad Wolf (1934)
07. Giantland (1933)

Gillett seen: 13

[flip]

Neptune Nonsense
Flowers and Trees
The Sunshine Makers

seen two, would prefer to vote for some i like better than what i've seen so far, so i'll probably watch more
edit: seen three
edit again: seen six

[deepbluefunk]

seen 6 22

1. Neptune Nonsense
2. Babes in the Woods
3. Flowers and Trees
4. The Sunshine Makers
5. The Three Little Pigs
6. Playful Pluto
7. Gulliver Mickey
8. Giantland

[Curtis, baby]

seen 4

The Chain Gang
Mickey's Good Deed

[niminy-piminy]

THE SUNSHINE MAKERS
ARCTIC ANTICS
ALONG CAME A DUCK
A LITTLE BIRD TOLD ME
FLOWERS AND TREES
THREE LITTLE PIGS
NEPTUNE NONSENSE
KING NEPTUNE
TOONERVILLE PICNIC
MICKEY PLAYS PAPA
MOLLY MOO COW AND ROBINSON CRUSOE

spread of acid communism told in nutshell...
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6tmgu3

[...]

What's the end day for this one? I'm hoping to watch a few more tonight before making a list.

Or I guess I could just ask if you could wait to close this one 'til Sunday.

[flip]

oh you definitely have until at least tuesday, but on my current tallying schedule, this poll will probably be open for something more like six of seven more days, so no rush

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Seen 13 17. Will update as I watch / rewatch more.

1. King Neptune (1932)
2. Three Little Pigs (1933)
3. Mickey's Nightmare (1932)
4. Gulliver Mickey (1934)
5. Babes in the Woods (1932)
6. Lonesome Ghosts (1937)
7. Flowers and Trees (1932)

[...]

The Birth of a Toothpick
Sunshine Makers
The Rag Dog
Mickey's Good Deed
A Picnic Panic
Toonerville Picnic
A Little Bird Told Me
Moth and Flame

Tough calls for some, as there's a number of others just as interesting, but this seems representative enough, though I suppose more Mickey would have fit his career better.

The best of the rest I've seen:
Shanghaied
King Neptune
Shindig
The Duck Hunt
The Steeplechase
Orphan's Benefit
Three Little Pigs
Bug's in Love
Toonerville Trolley
Monkey Melodies
Giantland
Mickey's Nightmare

[flip]

hopefully everyone had a chance to vote! a possibly impressive 23 different films got votes, not sure if the winner is a surprise:

results
1. The Sunshine Makers (1935) — 12 pts
2. Three Little Pigs (1933) — 10.5 pts
3. Babes in the Woods (1932) — 9 pts
4. Neptune Nonsense (1936) — 8 pts
5. Flowers and Trees (1932) — 6.3 pts
6. The Birth of a Toothpick (1929) — 5 pts
6. King Neptune (1932) — 5 pts
8. Gulliver Mickey (1934) — 4.3 pts
9. Arctic Antics (1930) — 4 pts
10. Ye Olden Days (1933) — 3 pts
10. The Rag Dog (1935) — 3 pts
10. Mickey’s Nightmare (1932) — 3 pts
10. Mickey’s Good Deed (1932) — 3 pts
10. Along Came a Duck (1934) — 3 pts
15. A Little Bird Told Me (1934) — 2.3 pts
16. The Chain Gang (1930) — 2 pts
17. Lonesome Ghosts (1937) — 1.5 pts
18. A Picnic Panic (1935) — 1 pt
19. The Big Bad Wolf (1934) — 0.5 pts
19. Toonerville Picnic (1936) — 0.5 pts
19. Playful Pluto (1934) — 0.5 pts
22. Giantland (1933) — 0.4 pts
23. Moth and Flame (1938) — 0.1 pts

[deepbluefunk]

Gillett was fun to dig into. Some gold, some meh, but usually fun.

Hey Flip
I'm sure you've explained before but how do you tabulate the points?

[flip]

Hey Flip
I'm sure you've explained before but how do you tabulate the points?

the idea behind the original scoring system was to give more weight to longer ballots (so that people who've seen more of a director's films have more influence on the results, and so that a director's less-seen films could still theoretically have a chance to do well). ballots used to be capped at 5 films, and so any ballot up to five films long is scored, counting from the bottom, using a 1-2-3... point system, so a two film ballot would give 2 points and 1 point to its two films, while a 5-film ballot awards 5-4-3-2-1 points.

i started to allow ballots longer than 5 films for some polls (and now for all polls) when we started to poll directors where most people had only seen maybe three or four films, but a couple of people had seen fifteen or twenty. i needed longer ballots in those polls just to get enough votes to be sure i could make a top ten from the votes. for those ballots longer than 5 films, the top five is still scored 5-4-3-2-1, and the 6th, 7th and 8th ranked films get 0.5, 0.3 and 0.1 points respectively.

if a voter posts an unranked ballot (which is perfectly fine to do but doesn't happen often), i work out how many points in total the ballot would award were it ranked, average by the number of films on the ballot, and give each voted film that average number of points. so a 6-film unranked ballot would normally award 5-4-3-2-1-0.5 points, a total of 15.5 points, or an average of 15.5/6 ~ 2.6 points per film, so all six films would get 2.6 points in that case. the idea is to ensure ranked and unranked ballots of the same length carry the same overall weight.

hope that answers your question! if not, i'm happy to clarify any details.

[deepbluefunk]

got it. thx

[flip]

i have posted this to letterboxd:

https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-293/